“You haven’t poisoned anyone at all. Someone else tampered with Alanza’s portion. As soon as the lab results on the rest of the jugs come in, you’ll be back in business.”
“Bad news spreads faster and sticks longer than good. I don’t know if the business will survive this sort of thing. Especially if Celadon has anything to say about it.” I poured syrup over everything on the plate.
“As soon as you reopen, we’ll put the stock we have here on sale. Buy one, get one free, or some such thing. People will be so happy with the price they’ll forget all about anything else, and you’ll be back at the top of your game.”
“What about the people who buy online?”
“I’m telling you, it isn’t going to matter before you know it. So cheer up and clean your plate. You’re still looking a little frazzled.” I told her about my run-in with Graham and all the things Knowlton had said about me at the auctions.
“You know what the most surprising thing about all of this is? That Knowlton knew enough about sex to make up something interesting. That guy has hidden depths.” Piper got the kind of look in her eyes she always did before announcing some new delicious idea she had for the restaurant.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“About what?” She batted her baby blues my way, like she did at flirtatious geezers who said more than they should. Like she did when we were kids and the teacher thought she’d been stirring up trouble.
“About Knowlton. You know how you are about hidden depths. If you start trying to plumb his, or worse, let him get round to measuring yours, I will lose my anchor in the sea of reality.” And I would, too. Some things a person can count on. Mosquitoes will bite, paper cuts will sting, and Knowlton will not be of romantic interest. These things were as immutable as the laws governing the moon’s trip around the earth. It was bad enough Knowlton had invented some escapades for me. Watching Piper contemplate stirring some up with him for real was enough to drive me away from my fries. And nothing ever drove me from my fries.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Good. See that it remains that way. I may be young but there is only so much my ticker can take in one week.” And just as always happens, the Stack filled up all at once, like a basement after a sudden storm. Piper hurried back behind the counter to welcome the newcomers and Mitch took the opportunity to fill her spot.
“So I hear not only have you been bopping off the locals, you’re hallucinating, too.” Mitch reached across the table and plucked one of my fries off my plate like we were in the habit of companionably sharing food. I was pleased to see a big blob of syrup land in the middle of his uniform shirt. If the angle was just right, you could see a bit of softening across his midriff. The syrup landed just about where a spare tire was thinking of inflating.
“I must be because I could swear I just saw an officer of the law steal some of my meal.” I yanked my plate closer and wrapped my arm around it like a pirate guarding his rations.
“Yup. You surely are seeing things then. You know how upright our police officers are.”
“I seem to remember you trying to convince me to join you in being anything but upright.” I speared a forkful of outrageously delicious sandwich and bit down on it with more force than I had intended. Mitch blushed a bit under his baby-smooth shave. He probably would never be able to grow a beard like Grampa’s.
“I heard you were hallucinating about mountain lions out at your property the other night.” Mitch always did know how to change a subject.
“Now where’d you hear a thing like that?” Myra was the only one I could think of who knew about my call. Honestly, I was surprised she hadn’t gotten on the horn and spread the news before she even put in the call to Fish and Game.
“From that game warden.” Unbelievable. And to think I had maligned Myra in my mind.
“I think you mean conservation officer. And why would he tell you a thing like that?”
“We’re both law enforcement officials, and I think he wanted my expert opinion on the reliability of the person who claimed to have witnessed the big cat.”
“I see.” If Graham didn’t hurry up and finish his business in Sugar Grove, I was going to be tempted to move out.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.” His hand crept across the Formica tabletop at about the same rate Graham’s sloth would have.
“Which was?” I grabbed a sticky menu from the rack at the table and whacked the back of his hand with it.
“That you’re a crazy pipsqueak with a taste for the grape.”
“He said that?”
“Not in those exact words but that’s what it boiled down to in the end. He stopped by the station after he got done at your place. Asked if you had ever been picked up for DWI or public drunkenness. Wondered if you were legally blind or affected poorly by the full moon. That sort of thing.”
“All of which you confirmed, apparently.”
“Well, I felt duty bound to reveal it was you who spiked the punch at the post-prom party.”
“I added a container of iced tea mix because it wasn’t sweet enough.”
“And that you suffered from eye strain.”
“How do you figure that?”
“You were voted class bookworm. That had to lead to some permanent damage.”
“Dare I ask about the moon?”
“Remember in the fifth grade how you jumped on Andy Peals and started hitting him with your lunch box when he mooned the pastor’s wife from the school bus?”
“Are you really allowed to take down witness statements?”
“He seemed pretty interested in what I had to say. And now with the way things look about Alanza dropping from eating your syrup, I’ll be surprised if you don’t get hauled off to the loony bin in Concord.”
“The syrup is not my fault. There are all sorts of people with great reasons for poisoning her.”
“Like who?”
“Like Roland. Like Knowlton.” Although knowing Piper’s taste in men, if Knowlton landed in jail on a murder charge, she was sure to become even more interested in him.
“Don’t forget Myra.”
“Myra had a problem with Alanza, too?”
“Of course she did. Myra was a Bett before she married a Phelps. Alanza got her mitts on the property bearing the family name and then set about destroying it. You can bet Myra was angry.”
“I didn’t realize Alanza and Myra were related.”
“Only distantly, to hear Myra tell it.”
“But how did someone from out of town like Alanza inherit when Myra didn’t?”
“That I don’t know. Myra likes to yak but she decides what about, and she wasn’t mentioning anything about the terms of the inheritance.”
“Did you try to pry it out of her?”
“Of course not. It was none of my business.”
“Well, it might be now. It sounds like it could be a motive. And Myra has access to the grange hall.”
“So does everybody and his brother,” Mitch reminded me.
“That doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be asked about it.”
“That’s something best left to Lowell. I have no intention of tangling with her.” Mitch slid toward the edge of the booth. “As a matter of fact, I think I’m going to leave it to you to mention it to Lowell. Something as potentially explosive as accusing an employee of murder might be best coming from you.”
“Why me? You’re the professional, remember?”
“But you’re the do-no-wrong goddaughter, remember? Have you forgotten the crossing guard incident?” Mitch stood next to the table and managed to snitch one last fry.
“You steal my food again and I will be sure to speak to Lowell about your proclivity for crime.”
“That’s to get you back for the radar gun details Lowell put me on after I dumped you.” Mitch walked off, wiping sausage grease from his fingers on his pant leg. Just another reason things would never
have worked out between us. If my grandmother had ever seen that at her dinner table, she would have given him some poisoned syrup on purpose.
• • •
I meant to keep out of things and simply wait for the call from Lowell letting us know someone had tampered with Alanza’s syrup bottle. But by nine the next morning, I had bottomed out my e-mail in-box, polished silver service for thirty-six, and scorched three different batches of caramel sauce for Thanksgiving dinner. I could hardly refuse when Grandma suggested I leave her kitchen in peace by heading for town to do some early Christmas shopping. I decided to use Christmas shopping as an excuse to ask Tansey Pringle a few questions about Alanza.
Tansey had her feet up on an overturned plastic milk crate when I pulled up into her driveway. I’m sure she was surprised to see me since generally I am doing my best to elude her efforts to hook me up with her son, Knowlton. She knocked over the crate and sprang to her feet, an impressive feat considering her age, sixty-six, and her arthritis, rheumatoid. Neither of which stopped her from serving as president of the local snowmobile club or running her small family farm.
Tansey liked to complain but never about her health or her work. She was happy to complain about town politics, other people’s decisions, and the weather but not about herself and certainly never about Knowlton. He could do no wrong in her eyes, and she just could not comprehend why it was that he was still single. I don’t know that it had occurred to her that having her as a mother-in-law might be a part of the problem. She spat a huge gob of tobacco on the ground next to her before speaking. A little trickle of the juice strayed down from the corner of her mouth, and I resisted the urge either to stare or point it out to her. If her mother had never gotten basic niceties into her head, there was no way it would be worth my time to try to do it. Besides, my grandmother would take me over her knee if Tansey reported I had been sassing my elders.
“Knowlton’s not up yet. But if you wait a bit, he’ll be moving around. He had a long night out in the woods.”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the snowmobile club.” I didn’t want to come right out and ask her about how the club would have been affected by Alanza’s plans to close the property for use. She might take offense and clam up entirely. But given any sort of opening, she was sure to let it all out. If I was careful, there was no way she could resist. Now for a good excuse as to why I was asking. I hated to do it to him, but I was about to sacrifice my own brother to the snowmobile gods.
“Were you thinking about joining?” Tansey leaned toward me like she always did when she got excited about something. Usually she was bragging about Knowlton and the latest thing he had dragged home and stuffed, but talk about snowmobiles ran a close second.
“Oh, not me, Loden. I’m having a hard time deciding what to get him for Christmas this year, and I thought a membership to the snowmobile association would be just the thing.”
“I didn’t know he was interested in snowmobiles.” Tansey looked up into the sky like she was checking her file on potential in-laws for Knowlton and then brought her eyes back down to my face like she came up empty. Which went to show that despite her advancing years, there was nothing wrong with her memory. Loden had never in all his life expressed an interest in snowmobiles. He had expressed plenty of disgust, but never any interest. He hated their noise and the stink of the exhaust.
“Well, that’s why it would make such a great surprise. He could really use something new to do in the winter, and this might be right up his alley. What can you tell me about the club?” I tried not to shift from one foot to the other like a little kid needing to pee, but that’s what lying did to me. It made me have to pee.
“Well, we’ve got a strong club established. We have over two hundred members and miles and miles of trails we maintain every year.”
“I heard Alanza’s decision to stop use on her land impacted the trail system. He’s not going to be disappointed, is he?”
“Now that she’s dead, I don’t expect that to continue to be an issue, do you?” Tansey leaned in a little closer and looked me straight in the eye like a human lie detector. I could tell she thought there was something fishy about my interest but couldn’t quite put her finger on it. I needed to tread carefully or Tansey would stick her lips together like the blades on some pruning shears left outside to rust all winter.
“I hadn’t heard how any of that would play out. I was just worried maybe Loden would get all excited about tearing around with all of you across the frozen wilderness and then have to come to a screeching halt with nowhere to go. That sounds awfully disappointing to me. Not the sort of gift I’d want to give him at all.” I shook my head with it hanging down a little, hoping the gloom was contagious.
“Nope. She hadn’t finalized anything before her fortunate face plant. I couldn’t be happier your syrup did her in. I’m tempted to give you a hefty discount on the membership for a job well done.” Tansey nodded up and down, her gray hair waggling as much as it could considering how short she wore it.
“We didn’t poison her. Someone else used our syrup as a vehicle for the poison.”
“I don’t give a half-rotted cow flap who helped her into permanent hibernation. But I’d love for them to know how happy we all are at the snowmobile club.”
“So it really was a big deal?” But was it big enough to kill over?
“It was. Alanza’s parcel separated two major trails a lot of people used to get to their camps. The main trails lead to smaller trails and even serve as the main roads into other towns during the winter. There are people who would have had to add at least a couple of hours’ driving time to their camps if she’d had time to implement this. And then there were the people who couldn’t have gotten to their properties at all.”
“I didn’t know snowmobiles were that important as transportation.” This time I wasn’t lying. I really had no idea since my family didn’t go in for snowmobiling at all.
“They are indeed. There are plenty of people with camps in places where there are no actual roads. If you go to them in summer, you hike in or ride an ATV. But in the winter you can enjoy skimming over the snow, not a care in the world.”
“Like who?” I was curious not only for the case but also because I wondered which of my neighbors had a camp somewhere so remote. After all, Sugar Grove is already pretty far into the sticks and I wondered who would want to go even deeper into undeveloped territory.
“Hanley Wilson is one. My own Knowlton is another.”
“Knowlton owns a property up north?” I was stunned. I had never thought of Knowlton as being able to detach from his mother long enough to go away overnight.
“Sure. He inherited it from my brother when he passed away a few years ago. Knowlton loves it up there. He spends some time each fall up there as a base for his business ventures.” By that I could only assume she meant he went up to the cabin by himself and located creatures to stuff.
“So Hanley and Knowlton both must be pretty glad she’s out of the way then.” I tried to sound casual but held my breath.
“Well, you can say that again. I heard Hanley went directly to the Stack Shack after the police finished questioning him at the breakfast and bought everyone there a round of coffee. Piper had to start several new pots just to keep up with the demand.”
“Sounds like a pretty enthusiastic reaction to her death.”
“It certainly was, considering what all has been going on between those two.” Tansey gave me an exaggerated wink that took so long on the recoil I wondered if she’d managed to glue her eyelid shut.
“Are you implying he was up to no good with Alanza in the way I think you mean?” I was shocked from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes. Granted this was not as big a deal as it would have been for someone of a more normal height, but it was all I could do. Tansey nodded.
“Where did you hear that?”
“From Myra, of course. Who else says such things?” Tansey winked again and I wondered if
she had always done it and I had never been old enough to be a recipient of her winks or if this was a new thing for her.
Myra was known for flapping her lips whenever a tasty tidbit landed in her ears. As outrageous as the things she passed on generally were, she wasn’t often wrong even if she was known for exaggerating. The trick with Myra was sifting out the reality from the embroidery of any situation. Time for a bit of digging.
“What did she say exactly? Coffee together at the Stack? Sharing a hymnal at church?” Any bit of anything could be read into especially as the winter was starting to gather around the town. Winter sports included snowmobiling, skiing, ice fishing, local politics, and dissecting the rumors passed on by Myra.
“Coffee isn’t drunk on your back. And whatever they were sharing wasn’t sanctified by the church. But it’s nice to meet a girl in this day and age still so innocent. No wonder my Knowlton is smitten.” Tansey looked my small frame up and down and I suddenly felt the need for a shower. With borax.
“An affair between Hanley and Alanza? Do you think Connie knew about it?” I wasn’t sure whether or not to believe it. Before Jill told me she was having an affair with him, I wouldn’t have thought Hanley could have seduced even one woman, let alone caught two in addition to his wife.
“If Myra knew, then most everybody else in town did, too. She isn’t exactly known for her discretion, now is she?” That was an understatement. Every embarrassing love affair, case of venereal disease, or arrest for DWI was something Myra shared with everyone in earshot.
“And what about Knowlton? He must have told you how he felt.”
“Well, you know Knowlton, never a bad word to say about anybody. He did say he wasn’t looking forward to coming back with a load of animals for stuffing an extra two hours out of his way. Even in the cold air, some of them can give off a powerful stink.” Tansey spat again like she was punctuating her thoughts.
“I can only imagine. So he can’t be mourning her loss, can he?”
“Well, of course not. No one is.”
“So why would Alanza want to shut down the access through her property for the snowmobile trails? Did someone do something to tick her off?”
Drizzled with Death (A Sugar Grove Mystery) Page 13